Rathergate anniversary - 39 days and counting - Judge Posner, New York Times miss the point

In an otherwise biased article that misses the point, the following appears in the New York Times today:

The conventional news media are embattled. Attacked by both left and right in book after book, rocked by scandals, challenged by upstart bloggers, they have become a focus of controversy and concern. Their audience is in decline, their credibility with the public in shreds. In a recent poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, 65 percent of the respondents thought that most news organizations, if they discover they've made a mistake, try to ignore it or cover it up, and 79 percent opined that a media company would hesitate to carry negative stories about a corporation from which it received substantial advertising revenues.

The MSM/DNC will never understand the forces that undermine its power and credibility as long as it pretends to be "attacked by both left and right." The MSM/DNC will never "get it" as long as it focuses on "advertising" instead of leftist ideology as the source of its credibility decline.

The article is useful notwithstanding its errors, as it details the MSM/DNC's decline. [See also this post and Chapter 5 of Hugh Hewitt's book, "Blog."].

The poll referenced by the NYT article chronicles the MSM/DNC decline only through 2000, so it fails to note the impact of Rathergate. But the poll and the article demonstrate that Rathergate was a result, more than a cause, of the MSM/DNC decline. Years of lies and biased coverage made Rathergate inevitable. The climate was ripe for a scandal in which a major MSM/DNC unit like CBS would be caught red-handed. Had 60 minutes elected to pass on the national guard story, some other MSM/DNC unit would have been caught in some major lie sooner or later. [See the 2005 list for some examples.] And that lie would have rocketed the blogosphere into the major national prominence that it enjoys today. As one who knows how to connect dots can glean from the NYT article, years of bias had so eroded MSM/DNC credibility with the public that one major lie just as the election campaign was heating up was all that it took to push the MSM/DNC over the edge.

If I worked at the New York Times, I would stop trying to demonize the Swift Boat Vets and update my polling information to reflect the continued MSM/DNC decline following September 8, 2004.

Click here for previous posts on the significance of Rathergate.

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn

As fascism and communism were in their day, Islamism is now the ideology of choice for the world's grievance-mongers. That means we have to destroy the ideology, or at least its potency -- not Islam per se, but at the very minimum the malign strain of Wahhabism, which thanks to Saudi oil money has been transformed from a fetish of isolated desert derelicts into the most influential radicalizing force in contemporary Islam, from Indonesia to Yorkshire to Virginia.

Mark Steyn

2003 UB313

Astronomers have discovered a new planet in our solar system. The planet is temporarily named "2003 UB313", pending approval of a more memorable name.



The new name might be interesting, to say the least.

The last new planet in our solar system (Pluto) was named 75 years ago. PC was but a spec of DNA in the MSM/DNC embryo at that time.

Even now, leftist pressure groups and the MSM/DNC are planning their campaigns to have the new planet named after some symbol of contemporary victimhood.

I would be very surprised if the planet ends up being named, like the rest of the solar system, after some classical deity.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

If we're so cruel to minorities, why do they keep coming here? Why aren't they sneaking across the Mexican border to make their way to the Taliban?

Ann Coulter

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.

C. S. Lewis

Rathergate Anniversary - 42 days and counting - Newsweek circulation and revenue

The following information regarding Newsweek is gratifying.

Check out Chapter 5 of Hugh Hewitt's book, "Blog", for more information on MSM/DNC circulation trends.



previous post: Newsweek lied, people died.

The Millenium Bomber (Ahmed Ressam) and Judge John C. Coughenour

A judge in Seattle has sentenced the "millenium bomber" to 22 years in prison relating to a terrorist plot that was supposed to take place one year before George W. Bush was first elected President. The case has nothing to do with Bush, but in true liberal judicial fashion, the judge took the opportunity to attack Bush, claiming that it is unnecessary to conduct military tribunals, deny counsel to detainees or house terrorists at Guantanamo. By doing this, we allow the terrorists to win.

In other news, it appears that the United States lost WWII after all. We failed to arrest the pilots that bombed Pearl Harbor. Even though we eventually sunk every Japanese ship that took part in launching the Pearl Harbor raid, we failed to allow the sailors on board to consult counsel before we sunk their ships. We failed to give those sailors due process. We failed to conduct hearings before each battle. We destroyed the Constitution, thus allowing the Japanese to win.

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update - - I just learned that Judge Coughenour is a Reagan appointee. That fact makes me feel much better about the Roberts nomination. Click here for related news on Republican appointees.

For the libs out there - the WWII reference was a parody. For the moderates and hopelessly optimistic among you, the reference to the Roberts nomination was intended to be sarcastic.

Michelle Malkin has more on Judge Coughenour.

Quote of the day - Ayn Rand

Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.

Ayn Rand

Quote of the day - Thomas Sowell

If people who commit sex crimes against children are so dangerous that they have to be registered for life after serving their sentences, why are they let out of prison in the first place?

Thomas Sowell

Quote of the day - Joe Sobran

Brazen criminals are rare; a larger part of the population is law-abiding only because they are timid. If they can benefit from looting without the risk of being arrested, they will support it. This sub-criminal class is the soul of democratic politics.

Joe Sobran

Rick Santorum; It Takes a Family

Who says the Fox network is conservative? Fox promoted this evening's edition of Hannity and Colmes by running an ad that described Rick Santorum's new book as "attacking single mothers." I had to look to the top of my computer screen to see which website I was viewing.

Unlike the MSM/DNC networks, Fox cares mostly about ratings and attention grabbing headlines. When their stories or promos favor conservativism, it is due to the accident of opportunism. But the MSM/DNC has been in the business of sacrificing ratings for ideology for decades.

Rathergate anniversary - 45 days and counting - Miami New Times

A blogging scandal has erupted at the Miami New Times:

Blogging — the publication by individuals of comments on personal Internet sites called Web logs — is becoming a growing legal and personnel headache for employers across the country.

Derogatory comments about employers and fellow workers, leaks of proprietary information and other objectionable material broadcast into cyberspace have led to firings and lawsuits in dozens of cases nationwide.

The story focuses on derogatory comments of a sexual nature that one of the editors placed on her personal blog regarding current and former Miami New Times employees. The real story is not the gossip that created the scandal, but the New Times' attempts to adjust to life after Rathergate.

When MSM/DNC tries to blog, its ethics don't improve just because it is operating in cyberspace instead of on TV or in print.

Click here to read previous editions of Rathergate anniversary countdown.

Katherine Baker Knoll

I was as outraged as the rest of you at the comments of Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor Katherine Baker Knoll at a recent military funeral. But I can't help thinking that there is more here than meets the eye.

While Ms. Baker-Knoll has long had a reputation as a dim bulb, she also has all the right enemies. Ms. Baker-Knoll serves as the Democratic Lt. Governor in the Rendell administration. Leftists in Pennsylvania have been trying to marginalize Baker-Knoll since the beginning of the administration. She gives them plenty of ammunitiion (as we have seen with recent events), but that doesn't explain why the left hates her. The left usually rushes to join with idiots, lunatics and other assorted no-class jerks. But they are making an exception in this case.

The fact is, she is one of the few prominent Democrats anywhere that is pro-life. Had those statements been made by a more consistent leftist, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette would not have mentioned it.

I suspect that the publicity surrounding this event is part of a run-up to dumping Knoll from the ticket for next year's gubernatorial elections. Rendell's choice in the 2002 primary was a more liberal candidate, but Knoll won the primary because she was the only woman on the ballot in the Democratic primary. [That is a good example of gender-politics chickens coming home to roost.] Unlike some other states, in Pennsylvania the governor and lieutenant governor are nominated separately in the primary election.

Look for the Dems to trot out a new, more reliably leftist candidate next spring for Lt. Governor. Assuming that Rendell wins in the fall, that new candidate will then be groomed to replace Rendell or Arlen Specter in 2010.

I am not going to blog any more about Knoll because I don't want to help the Dems do their dirty work. Let them clean up their own house. Knoll will continue to give her opponents more ammunition and her opponents will continue to attack her using their friends at the Post-Gazette and other papers.

For all the anger I feel at this latest event, I feel much more outrage at Governor Rendell's attempt to prevent our soldiers' votes from counting during the Presidential election last fall. Incoherent rambling from an idiot is far less offensive than the denial of our soldiers' basic rights as citizens.

Quote of the day - Oriana Fallaci

The increased presence of Muslims in Italy, and in Europe, is directly proportional to our loss of freedom.

Oriana Fallaci

Garet Garrett, Satan's Bushel

I finally did it. After several months, I have finally updated my other blog, Garet Garrett.

MSM lie #36 - Seattle Times mischaracterizes Senate report.

Click here for the entire list.

I am sure there is much dishonesty on the part of MSM/DNC in the Rove/Plame affair. The continued use of the phrase "covert" in reference to Valarie Plame (in the face of mounting evidence that she was well known) is one example. The continued efforts to ignore the actual statements by the Time reporter and the efforts to avoid asking what Judith Miller really knows and why she would stay in prison rather than reveal it are other examples. [And yes, it does take effort to avoid asking those questions.]

But the only concrete lie I could find in my limited research time has been provided by the Seattle Times, as they mischaracterize a Senate report in a way that can only be characterized as intentional. Wilson is discredited as a result of his attempts to mislead the Senate and the country regarding the growing danger of nuclear proliferation - particularly Hussein's attempts to procure uranium. Any attempt to whitewash that fact is a lie.

MSM Lie # 35 - New York Times invents quotes.

Click here for the list.

Last week, the New York Times fabricated quotes in an article to add an anti-Bush slant, then apologized, claiming that the whole thing was a mistake.

The New York Times explains here and here.

Powerline's take on the story.

A legitimate mistake would be a mere misquotation. Taking something out of context would be an example of bias. But making up entire quotes can be nothing but a lie.

Mark Steyn column - multiculturalism - "The Australian"

I haven't seen today's "Australian" Mark Steyn column mentioned yet in the blogosphere. [I admit I haven't looked everywhere yet. It is a big blogosphere.]

This one is one of his best columns (and that is saying a lot). The "tolerance of everything but intolerance" mantra finally comes full circle.

Quote of the day - Ronald Reagan

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Ronald Reagan

Rathergate Anniversary - 47 days and counting - Dilpazier Aslam and the Guardian

The power of the blogosphere has manifested itself in a scandal that plagues the The Guardian in London. Eursoc provides the details:

UK bloggers may have hit on a home-grown scandal as significant as last year's weblog-led revelation that CBS had been duped by forged documents relating to George W. Bush's military record.

This time, the in-house journal of Britain's liberal establishment has come under intense scrutiny as bloggers - and not a few mainstream media journalists - demand to know why The Guardian continues to employ an extremist Islamist.

Aslam wrote that England should examine itself to see whether it should accept responsibility for the recent terrorist bombings. Aslam summarized the attitudes of the terrorists (and himself) thusly:

"We're much sassier with our opinions, not caring if the boat rocks or not"

The boat has rocked to the point that Aslam has been dismissed.

Quote of the day - Barry Goldwater

You've got to forget about this civilian. Whenever you drop bombs, you're going to hit civilians.

Barry M. Goldwater

Quote of the day - C.S. Lewis

A young man who wishes to remain a sound atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.

C. S. Lewis

"Moderate" muslims and Mecca

There has been much discussion lately about the reaction of "moderate" muslims to the possibility that America might attack Mecca if the Islamists nuke Manhattan. Al Qaeda supposedly has nuclear weapons already in place in the U.S. and is waiting to use them. Several commentators have raised the possibility that we would provoke the "moderate" muslims if we attacked Mecca.

I have discussed Mecca as a military target here.

Some of us seem to assume that there is this vast reservoir of "moderate" muslims that remain up for grabs like the fictitious "undecided voter" that appears every four years in American presidential elections. While there is much that we don't know about Islam, I suspect that "moderate" muslims, if they exist, care little about Mecca. I suspect that many muslims might be muslims in name only (like many nominal Christians in the West) whose "faith" plays little role in their lives. This is just speculation on my part, but it is educated speculation. Look at the pictures from the Cedar Revolution this past spring (most of which I lifted from Willisms.com).











At least one of the ladies in the photo at left is a Lebanese Christian, but at least one of them is supposedly Muslim.



Maybe I just need an excuse to post pictures like this, but I think these pictures tell a story. Do you think any of the women in these photos (or the men in their lives) care much about Mecca? Remember, Mecca is not simply a place to which one travels, hears services and prayers, takes photos and buys a religious trinket in the nearby gift shop. Mecca is steeped in ritual, tradition and discipline. No non-muslim has been permitted to visit that city in centuries (although a few (or at least one) did so in disguise in the 19th century).

Mecca's very survival (and that of the Kaaba stone) is offered as proof of Islam's invincibility. The Kaaba stone's destruction (even with conventional weapons and little loss of life) would send a powerful signal to the fanatics that they may be giving their lives for nothing. It would also send a signal to the "moderates" that they have nothing to fear from Allah and that the Islamification of the world is not inevitable.

Think of the photos as you consider the words of Mark Steyn:

But, you know, we've been told ever since 9/11 that the allegedly seething ''Muslim street'' was about to explode, and for four years it's remained as somnolent as a suburban cul-de-sac on a weekday afternoon. Invade their countries, topple their rulers, bomb their infrastructure from the first day of Ramadan to the last, arrest their terrorists, hold them at Gitmo for half a decade, initiate reforms setting the Arab world on the first rung of the ladder to political and economic liberty, and the seething Muslim street gives one almighty shrug.

Quote of the day - Ayn Rand

The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.

Ayn Rand

John Roberts - should we worry yet?

When I read an Ann Coulter column and it contains some of the same things I wrote about a day earlier, (but with Ann using much stronger language), I resist the urge to pat myself on the back and I begin to worry. I wrote the following warning that we should be cautious about Roberts' Brief in which he argued against the Roe v. Wade decision:

Much is being made of Roberts' quotation in a 1991 brief where he wrote on behalf of the first Bush administration:

. . . we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled. . .

But that statement doesn't prove anything. Roberts was working for the administration and he advocated the administration's position.

In 1966, future Justice Thurgood Marshall (as solicitor general) argued the government's position against Miranda. He lost and Miranda v. Arizona became the most well-known of the civil rights cases to come out of the Warren Court. I don't believe Marshall took any steps to limit that decision once he joined the Court.

Now, Ann has found a 1994 quote from Roberts that seems to distance himself from that and other Briefs.
Sue Bob is skeptical also.

While we won't get anywhere by opposing the nomination, we should recognize the strategic mistake, if one was made. There may be other appointments before Bush leaves office.

Ann made another point that I made yesterday and that Hugh Hewitt has often made prior to this nomination:

Conservatism is sweeping the nation, we have a fully functioning alternative media, weÂ’re ticked off and ready to avenge Robert Bork . . .

We have the means in place to win a difficult battle. Bush need not have been afraid of a fight. We did not have those means in 1987.

If we end up with another Souter, Kennedy or O'Connor (or Stevens, Blackmun, Powell, Brennan, Warren, etc. - all Republican appointments) we should recognize that the fault lies with the blogosphere in the first place. We had the means to influence the nomination prior to the nominee being selected. Instead, we waited and discussed various choices as if we were betting on a horse. We should have turned our blogs into megaphones for a few selected strict constructionist candidates. We should have advocated and discussed strict constructionism the way we are discussing it today.

Today's discussion should have occurred over the past two weeks. That kind of discussion would have shown the White House and the Senate that we have the power to win a battle if the Dems choose to recreate the Bork fight. That discussion would have convinced the White House that this is not 1987. The White House fears another Bork battle because uncreative generals always fight the previous war. Just as Civil War generals used pre-civil war tactics (with disastrous results), our political leaders don't recognize the new weapons and tactics that did not exist in 1987. We need to show them that those tactics work.

My suggestion is that we refrain from opposing Roberts, and that we engage in a discussion of strict constructionism. We should also continue to point out the dishonest tactics that the MSM/DNC has used in the past to derail qualified candidates. At least this way, we can lay the groundwork for the next nominee (if we are so lucky). Roberts will be confirmed anyway.

We should avoid one mistake that conservative pundits made yesterday. Don't advocate for Roberts on the basis that he was already confirmed unanimously for the appeals court in 2003. That is a good argument, but it will backfire if we ever have a nominee whose appellate confirmation was less than unanimous. That argument also teaches us nothing about legal and constitutional principles and the real reasons for confirming a nominee.

I remembered something else this morning. During the O'Connor confirmation process, Jesse Helms held a press conference and announced that he had spoken with Ronald Reagan and that Reagan had assured him that O'Connor's "position on abortion was no different than his [Reagan's] position and my [Helms] position." We all know how that worked out. [I don't have a link, I am going from memory.]

[Useless trivia - the last time we had a Supreme Court Justice named Roberts, things didn't turn out so well. If you don't know what I am talking about, figure it out before the next nominee is announced. I think you have at least one year to look it up.]

[Useless self-aggrandizing point - if Roberts goes bad, at least I can take consolation in not jumping in to support Clement yesterday. Actually, the whole Clement leak may have been a head fake to get conservatives to breath a sigh of relief at the Roberts nomination. We should find out who leaked Clement's name and resolve never to believe them again.]

I also believe that Hugh Hewitt has gambled his entire hard won credibility on this issue. If Roberts ultimately drifts (runs) to the left (like Republicans Souter, Kennedy, O'Connor, Stevens, Blackmun, Powell, Brennan, Warren), then Hewitt will have some 'splainin' to do. Hugh (if I may sound so familiar) is an excellent tactician and blogosphere theoretician. But I am not convinced that he understands all of the deeper philosophical points that make the new media necessary. (As evidenced by his recent confusion between Mecca and the Vatican).

On the other hand, if Roberts votes with Thomas and Scalia on the next abortion case, opposes affirmative action, votes to strike down Kelo, refuses to uphold gay marriage, etc., then I will thank Hugh Hewitt and buy another of his books to go with my treasured copy of "Blog."

Additional voices here.

Classics of Conservatism - part IX - "Blog" - Hugh Hewitt

Click here and here for previous editions of Classics of Conservatism.

I just read "Blog" this month and discovered numerous items that increased my appreciation of the blogosphere.

Click here, here, here, here, here and here for previous posts referencing this book.



- Hewitt provides a brief history of Rathergate and other blogosphere milestones.

- More importantly, Hewitt discusses ways that each of us can use the blogosphere as a business model or to promote our hobbies, school, church or other organization.

- Hewitt acquaints the reader with the concept of "swarming."

- Hewitt shows how the blogosphere, Rathergate and related events are just as momentous as the Reformation.

- Hewitt shows how blogs can be useful in the coming Supreme Court battle (pp. 103, 148).

Throughout the book, the reader obtains a strong sense of the historical nature of today's events, particularly media related events.

On page 171, Hewitt discusses a topic that I cover as #21 in the bias categories list - White Noise - the habit of the MSM/DNC to discuss irrelevant topics so as to distract attention from the real issues of the day. Hewitt goes into some depth on this phenomenon and uses it to explain some of the blogosphere's success.

On page 216, Hewitt quotes one of his reader's accounts of a Dan Rather episode from the 1980's, in which Rather claimed that an "American died in Nicaragua when his helicopter was shot down during an attack on a school." Without going into great detail, suffice it to say that the reader did his own research and discovered the hidden truth about this event and how Rather twisted it to appear that the American military was attacking school children. Despite all that we have learned about Rather, it was still surprising to see yet one more example of his perfidy.

For those looking for a history of the early blogsphere/new media years, this book deserves a place alongside the Drudge Manifesto.

After reading this book, you will be excited about blogging and will enjoy renewed interest in your own blog activities.

Rathergate Anniversary - 50 days and counting - General William Westmoreland

Click here for previous editions of the Rathergate countdown and discussions of media revolution that Rathergate symbolizes and accelerated.

















General William Westmoreland died two days ago. His death reminds me of a chapter in media history that demonstrated to me in 1982 the oppressiveness of the media. Little did I know that we were even then on the verge of an historic revolution.

Westmoreland fought a well known battle against CBS when a 1982 CBS documentary edited Westmoreland's words in a misleading way. CBS implied that Westmoreland had manipulated casualty lists during the Vietnam war and withheld bad news from President Johnson. Westmoreland sued CBS but eventually settled the lawsuit.

Had the blogosphere existed in 1982, CBS would have suffered a much larger blow to its credibility as a result of the exposure of the CBS clever editing techniques. As I recall, TV Guide presented a lengthy refutation of the CBS documentary, but one article cannot compare to the swarming power of multiple blogs demanding answers and exposing falsehoods 24/7.

The difference between 1982 and 9-8-04 is enormous.

Debbie Schlussel also commented on this yesterday.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The quixotic desire to do good, be universally fair and make everybody happy is understandable. Indeed, the majority’s zeal is more than a little endearing. There is only one problem with this approach. We are a court."

Justice Janice Rogers Brown



Because I am generally content with the current nominee, I will once again begin to use quotes from individuals other than Justice Brown. There is hopefully no need to show the contrast between Brown and the current nominee, as I would have done had the nominee been Clement. I still have a reservoir of quotes from Justice Brown that I will use in the future.

Justice John Roberts

Late this afternoon, my sincerest wish was that I would owe Judge Clement an apology in twenty years. Now, it appears that I may owe President Bush the apology instead. I hope it won't take twenty years to find out.

I intend to fight for this nominee and take my chances with the outcome. This is a fight we can win. I am glad at least that we have something to fight for and a chance to prove that we can overcome hostile Democrats and weak moderates in the Senate. We have our own "establishment" in place to spread the word about this nominee and about the general principal of strict constructionism. We did not have that "establishment" in 1987 when Bork was smeared by the left. I will write more about that comparison in coming days.

Much is being made of Roberts' quotation in a 1991 brief where he wrote on behalf of the first Bush administration:

. . . we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled. . .

But that statement doesn't prove anything. Roberts was working for the administration and he advocated the administration's position.

In 1966, future Justice Thurgood Marshall (as solicitor general) argued the government's position against Miranda. He lost and Miranda v. Arizona became the most well-known of the civil rights cases to come out of the Warren Court. I don't believe Marshall took any steps to limit that decision once he joined the Court.

We can take nothing for granted, but this one is worth fighting for.

More info here and here.

Judge Edith Clement v. Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Click here, here, here, here, here, here, for some quotes from Janice Rogers Brown.

Contrast this record with this.

I confess that I am exaggerating. I am sure that Judge Clement has written many opinions and made a few speeches, but I am sure they are quite safe.

Powerline has more:

I would say that the last 20 or 30 years of history suggest that Republican nominees who do not have a clear track record of commitment to conservative jurisprudential principles drift to the left over time--some, of course, farther than others. I'm not saying that this is a law of nature, only that it seems like a pretty clear pattern in recent years.

I AM saying that this is a law of nature. Earl Warren, William Brennan, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell, O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter. All of them were Republican appointees. Four of them became raging leftists. Three of them had (have)records that veer all over the map, including the recent reliance on foreign law and other extra-constitutional principles.

I am sure we will not notice the difference between today's Court and the new Court that will convene with Justice Clement seated on the bench this fall (after maybe a token fight in the Senate - the Dems can't make it too obvious by being unanimous again). As I said before, the left has the Court and the laws that it wants. This situation is far from "moderate," and this new appointment (if the rumors are true), will change nothing.

What is most disappointing is that we are more prepared than ever before to win a battle over an actual strict constructionist. We are ready for a fight over a solid nominee in a way that we were not in 1987 when the left smeared Robert Bork. I fear that President Bush may not get another opportunity (except to replace Justice Rehnquist) which at most would be an idealogical wash.

See also Michelle Malkin for further updates.

alternate quote of the day - Judge Clement

. . . . . . . . .

crickets . . . . . . .. . .

Judge Edith Clement

The Supreme Court speculation centers on Judge Edith Clement of the Eighth [FIFTH] (see correction below) Circuit.
AP says the following:

Known as a conservative and a strict constructionist in legal circles, Clement also has eased fears among abortion-rights advocates. She has stated that the Supreme Court "has clearly held that the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution includes the right to have an abortion" and that "the law is settled in that regard."

A belief in Constitutional protection for abortion is incompatible with strict constructionism. If you still are unsure, she was confirmed 99-0 to the Eighth [5th] Circuit in 2001. I don't know who was absent, but out of the group that includes Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Dick Durbin, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry and Ted Kennedy, all but one (and possibly all) voted FOR Judge Clement.

I think I will sit this "battle" out and let the moderates carry the day for us.

If President Bush nominates Clement, it is quite possible that the vote will be nearly unanimous again.

When the next Kelo-type decision is handed down (or some decision supporting affirmative action in universities or some other leftist/moderate doctrine) I do not want to have been on record as having supported Judge Clement's nomination.

Where are all of the pundits who claim to have been early supporters of Souter or Kennedy?
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update - Judge Clement is with the 5th Circuit, not the Eighth Circuit. Sorry.

update - Michelle Malkin posts a roundup.
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Michelle Malkin posts another roundup - this one specifically for Clement.

Rathergate anniversary - 51 days and counting - Thomas Sowell in 1998

Click here for yesterday's Rathergate anniversary countdown post as it relates to Dr. Sowell in the early 1980's.

"The Internet has probably made it impossible for any country to have the kind of censorship and propaganda monopoly that totalitarian countries achieved in the first half of this century."

May 11, 1998

[Of course, he neglects to mention the "censorship and propaganda monopoly" that the MSM/DNC achieved until recently in this country.]

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Democracy and capitalism seem to have triumphed. But, appearances can be deceiving. Instead of celebrating capitalism’s virtues, we offer it grudging acceptance, contemptuous tolerance, but only for its capacity to feed the insatiable maw of socialism. We do not conclude that socialism suffers from a fundamental flaw. We conclude instead that its ends are worthy of any sacrifice – including our freedom . . . 1937. . .marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution. [Federalist speech at 6-7, 10]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Some thoughts on Mecca, the Kaaba Stone, Tancredo, Malkin, and the Captain

Kaaba stone at Mecca

Mecca is to Islamic terror what Japanese factories were to the Japanese war effort. Islam has no manufacturing or traditional military targets. Those who think only of traditional military targets are mired in the previous generation's war - the mistake of every failed general.

Belief in literal, fundamentalist, radical Islam is the terrorists' weapon for enlisting suicide bombers. Mecca is the Islamic "production center", the Islamic engine of war, the Islamic arsenal, the Islamic industrial base. The analogies go on.

I am not saying we should nuke Mecca, but we must stop thinking of the Kaaba stone as we think of the Vatican or a church or shrine. Our approach must change in some fundamental way NOW - not after the next terrorist attack.

The Captain and Michelle Malkin weigh in.

So do 1754 and Rottweiller.
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A final thought - officials in China are gauging our reaction to Tancredo as they weigh their options for invading Taiwan down the road.

-------------------------------

Another final thought.

A commenter from La Shawn's page made the following points:

There would be no need to nuke Mecca. All that is needed is to bomb the main mosque where the big meteor rock is stored that is worshipped once a year. This can be done in the middle of the night with a minimal, if not any, loss of life.

The reason why such an action is expedient is the fact Islamic superstition is tied to the promise allah allegedly made that no infidels (that is us) would ever destroy the mosque or desecrate the holy site. We have seen similar superstition with the whole flushing the Qur’an nonsense.

A surgical strike with 2 or 3, 2,000 lbs bombs, would show the false prophecies of the false god allah to be what they are, false and it would demoralize the beliefs of the jihadists. If allah cannot defend his own holy sites as he claimed he would, he is exposed as being the false god that he really is. Thus, there is no more a reason to make war; at least for a weak, defenseless god.

To place this in perspective, after WW2, General MacArthur insisted that the emperor go on Japanese national radio and renounce his claim as being a divine being. The reason that was necessary was because Japanese national imperialism was tied directly to the emperor who was the god giving the orders to make war. Once the “god” was exposed as false, the purpose for making war is gone.

This type of mentality is seen through out all of human history. The defeat of one nation was viewed as a defeat of that nation’s god. It demonstrated that the god was unable to defend the nation.

Hooray for Tancredo not being a girly man. Hewitt and the others criticizing him yesterday are an embarrassment and only demonstrate their myopic ignorance of Isalm in light of the historical facts. I can only wish Hewitt will educate himself.
The one bit of advice I would give Mr. Tancredo would be to clarify his comments in light of what I wrote above. Draw back on the nuke comment and talk about the destruction of the main mosque

Fred
www.hipandthigh.blogspot.com

-------------------------------------------------------------
update - We have apparently offended the right people.

Here are a couple of additional things at which they can take offense.

A sad and virtually forgotten anniversary

H/T 1754 and Sweet Spirits of Ammonia.

Rathergate anniversary - 52 days and counting - Thomas Sowell's experience in the pre-Rathergate era.

It is hard to appreciate the full potential of the blogosphere unless we revisit MSM/DNC atrocities of the past. Thomas Sowell's autobiography "A Personal Odyssey" provides several examples where the blogosphere would have prevented the MSM/DNC from getting away with spreading rumors and memes.

Dr. Sowell is an economics professor and noted free market advocate who has attracted his share of MSM/DNC attacks over the years, especially after his books and articles began to gain some publicity:

The worst of all the reckless misrepresentations came in a broadcast by CBS news reporter Lem Tucker, who said that my position "seems to place him in the school that believes that maybe blacks are genetically inferior to whites." Staggering as it was to suggest that anyone was saying that his own race was genetically inferior, it was still more staggering to suggest such a thing after I had written against that argument as often as I had.

page 189

This particular example involves an easily disprovable lie, but Thomas Sowell lacked the platform to convey the truth to a wide audience. In the early 1980's, we could not compete with CBS. After considering and dropping the idea of a lawsuit, Dr. Sowell provided CBS with copies of his writings that disproved the reporter's race-baiting attack. Dr. Sowell does not say whether CBS issued a retraction.

Had this happened today, any major blog that picked up on the story would have started a mini-scandal much like the ones we have seen over the past year.

There are more examples in Dr. Sowell's book, particularly as they relate to the upcoming Supreme Court battle.

Click here for previous posts explaining the significance of the Rathergate countdown.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Thus, lawyers have secured the right of topless dancers to perform, but have banished prayer from public life. They have won the right for indigents to take over public spaces, even our children’s libraries, and for the mentally ill to live on streets and shout obscenities at passersby. Legal advocates have guaranteed the right of students to be ignorant by opposing competency tests, and ignored their brazen possession and use of weapons in school. [“Politics: A Vision for Change,” Docket (Dec. 1993) at 15]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

MSM Lie # 33 - L.A. Times, David G. Savage and "white men"

[correction - this lie is #34 - not #33. Sorry].
Patterico has noticed what will become lie #33 [34] on the list of MSM lies of 2005.

The L.A. Times false asserted that the list of leading candidates to replace possibly retiring Justice Renquist contained only "white men." This account was contained in the print version and was fictional.

The Times then changed its online version to airbrush the word "white" out of the sentence without acknowledging the error in the print edition. The print edition has yet to be corrected and the online version has yet to acknowledge the original "error."

This is a two-for-one lie - the print lie and the online airbrushing.

Is it any wonder that race relations in this country have reached their present state?

H/T also to Michelle Malkin.

This is L.A. Times' fourth item on the list, having previously contributed ## 6, 22 and 25.

Rathergate anniversary - 53 days and counting - Hugh Hewitt

Click here to see the significance of the Rathergate Anniversary Countdown.

"Newspapers and TV talking heads are falling behind their audiences because they refuse to read the map that is in front of their noses. They want to regain their monopoly on commentary, and seem to believe that by ignoring the repeated tidal waves that hit them, they can will themselves back to relevance."

Hugh Hewitt, "Blog" p. 184.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

[P]rivate property, already an endangered species in California, is now entirely extinct in San Francisco…I would find the HCO [San Francisco Residential Hotel Unit Conversion and Demolition Ordinance] preempted by the Ellis Act and facially unconstitutional. …Theft is theft even when the government approves of the thievery. Turning a democracy into a kleptocracy does not enhance the stature of the thieves; it only diminishes the legitimacy of the government. …The right to express one’s individuality and essential human dignity through the free use of property is just as important as the right to do so through speech, the press, or the free exercise of religion. [Dissenting opinion in San Remo Hotel L.P. v. City and County of San Francisco, 41 P.3d 87, 120, 128-9 (Cal. 2002)

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Karl Rove, executive privilege and the Clinton defense

I have said almost nothing about the MSM/DNC attacks on Karl Rove because the blogosphere has done a pretty good job of exposing the attackers for the frauds that they are. But I noticed one item in the news today that reminds me of Bill Clinton by contrast. AP's report today contained the following quote:

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said his client answered all the questions prosecutors asked during three grand jury appearances, never invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the president's executive privilege guaranteeing confidential advice from aides.

How long did Clinton stall his perjury investigation because his lawyers were using various delaying tactics? How many months were wasted in court because Clinton was asserting "executive privilege"? Rove has done none of this. Rove has apparently cooperated fully.

Joe Sobran wrote the following about Clinton's tactics in 1998:

Whenever the police pull me over, which I'm afraid is a common occurrence, I figure it's in my interest to be nice and cooperate. The offense is invariably minor -- an expired sticker in my windshield -- and there's no point in being ornery with the man who holds the discretionary power either to stick me with a $50 fine or to let me go with a warning.

It might be different if I knew that if a cop stopped me, he was bound to find that I was carrying a bullet-riddled body in the trunk. In that case, the logic of the situation might dictate a shootout. Being cooperative wouldn't get me far if the offense was serious.

Not that I can really picture myself shooting a cop; being nice is more my style, which is why I usually get in trouble for expired stickers rather than murder in the first place. But you see what I mean.

That's why it's interesting that Bill Clinton should be conducting a hate campaign against special prosecutor Kenneth Starr. And the key fact is that it began long before the Monica Lewinsky story broke.

Clinton's normal style is conciliatory and ingratiating. Like any good politician, he knows better than to make enemies he doesn't need, and you'd expect him to be the last man to antagonize someone who was conducting a criminal investigation.

And yet he and James Carville were accusing Starr of political motives nearly as soon as Starr took over the Whitewater investigation. . . . . . But there is another obvious motive for both Clinton and McDougal: fear.

If Clinton has, so to speak, a bullet-riddled body in the trunk, and Starr is the cop, Clinton realized that being nice wouldn't get him out of this jam. Knowing what Starr was bound to discover, he quickly went into the shootout mode, hoping to discredit Starr personally before Starr could announce what was found in the trunk.

. . . . .
For the guilty who hope to escape, cooperation with the prosecution is utterly irrational. The rational course is to frustrate and, if possible, destroy the prosecutor.

emphasis added

But in the warped mind of the followers of MSM/DNC, Clinton will always be the innocent victim, while Rove will always be guilty.
[It is interesting to note also that the MSM/DNC kool-aid drinkers know exactly what crimes Clinton is innocent of, while being unable to explain what Rove is guilty of. "Clinton is absolutely innocent of perjury, selling secrets to the Chinese, selling plots in Arlington, defrauding investors in his Arkansas land scheme, bombing foreign countries to distract attention from his domestic troubles, raping Juanita Broadrick, misusing FBI files, etc. Rove is guilty of whatever that guy on TV said he did. . ." ]

Isn't it nice finally to have a White House that is not engaged in the stonewall-of-the-week?

Rathergate anniversary - 54 days and counting - Blonde Sagacity Anniversary

Click here for previous Rathergate anniversary countdown posts.

Today is Blonde Sagacity's (otherwise known as Alicia) one year blogiversary.



Alicia's blog is one of my favorites. It is witty, fun and full of great photos and information.
Unlike me, Alicia is not a "child of Rathergate," having started her blog two months before Rathergate broke.

I have been attributing much of the blogosphere explosion to the Rathergate scandal, but Blonde Sagacity is somewhat of an anomoly. Unlike other conservative blogs, Alicia's blog actually decreased in traffic during the Rathergate scandal. But that decline appears to be attributable to her ten day absence during that month and the fact that she didn't write much about the scandal during that time.

Happy Blogiversary, Alicia!
------------------------
Update - Alicia has added the following to her post today:

Salt asked why/how I started blogging and I guess I should have included that... JR read an article about a since defunct Milblogger named Levi in People Magazine. From his site we found Buzz (CBFTW). We started reading CB's site a few days after it started. I wanted to start commenting, but couldn't unless I signed up for Blogger. Some people figured out how to create a username without creating a blog -but I couldn't so I set up the site. You can see by my choice of user name that I never imagined anyone but JustRose reading it. I never intended to be ALLAH (which I wanted to be Ay-eL-Ay, but I know everyone says it allah in their heads) in the middle of the War on Terror...though now I like the irony of an infidel, conservative Allah... So that's how it started-- to comment on CBFTW's My War.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

But, alas, the decisions of such [supreme] courts, including my own, seem ever more ad hoc and expedient, perilously adrift on the roiling seas of feckless photo-op compassion and political correctness. [IFJ speech at 15]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Islam in Africa - something else to help you sleep at night

I found a version of this map at Pamela's Atlas Shrugs page:



The green area is "predominantly muslim." The shaded area is going to be predominantly muslim soon. The shaded area and the southern green areas are where the most violence takes place now. Those areas also have the most oil (and the most genital mutilation). The more green Africa gets, the higher the price of oil.

[The whole red state/blue state thing doesn't seem so bad now, does it?]

[Actually, yes it does. If we didn't have blue states in the U.S., we could do more to confront the Green States in Africa and elsewhere.]

Pamela advocates her own solutions, which may be a good start.

I bet if we seriously reversed the flow of Islam anywhere in the world, it would appear less "inevitable" to its followers and the flow of Islam across Africa would slow. In order for that to happen, we would need to seriously re-think our own multiculturalism.

New nuclear threats from China

A top Chinese General said on Thursday that "China is prepared to use nuclear weapons against the US if it is attacked by Washington during a confrontation over Taiwan . . . . " according to FT.com.

We cannot solve this problem by ignoring it. We have less margin for error now than we did when the U.S. embarked on its appeasement policy decades prior to the Reagan years. We recovered from the appeasement errors of the post-war era in time to win the cold war against the Soviet Empire, but we may not recover in time this time unless we start now.

Preventing further Chinese inroads into the West (such as the Chevron deal) would be a good place to start). Preventing further technology transfers would be essential also. Reduced dependence on foreign oil (e.g. allowing drilling in Alaska), reduced government interference in our own ecomony, lower taxes, securing all of our borders, etc. are essential tasks also. We cannot confront or withstand foreign enemies unless we stop the erosion of our own economy and culture. Otherwise, we may be faced with the awful choice between allowing China to conquer Taiwan (and other parts of Asia) or war. Either choice would be a losing proposition.

Previous posts on China:

Chinese troops in Haiti

Panama Canal

the Clinton connection

Chinese military buildup

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

At its founding and throughout its early history, this regime revered private property. The American philosophy of the Rights of Man relied heavily on the indissoluble connection between rationality, property, freedom and justice. The Founders viewed the right of property as “the guardian of every other right”….[IFJ speech at 5]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned...Protection of property was a major casualty of the Revolution of 1937…Rights were reordered and property acquired a second class status...It thus became government’s job not to protect property but, rather, to regulate and redistribute it. And, the epic proportions of the disaster which has befallen millions of people during the ensuing decades has not altered our fervent commitment to statism.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

[Federalist speech at 12, 13]

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

We are heirs to a mind-numbing bureaucracy; subject to a level of legalization that cannot avoid being arbitrary, capricious, and discriminatory. What other outcome is possible in a society in which no adult can wake up, go about their business, and return to their homes without breaking several laws? There are of course many reasons for our present difficulties, but some of our troubles can be laid at the feet of that most innocuous branch – the judiciary…From the 1960’s onward, we have witnessed the rise of the judge militant.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown
[Speech to California Lincoln Club Libertarian Law Council (Dec. 11, 1997)

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

I have argued that collectivism was (and is) fundamentally incompatible with the vision that undergirded this country’s founding. The New Deal, however, inoculated the federal Constitution with a kind of underground collectivist mentality. The Constitution itself was transmuted into a significantly different document...1937...marks the triumph of our own socialist revolution...Politically, the belief in human perfectibility is another way of asserting that differences between the few and the many can, over time, be erased. That creed is a critical philosophical proposition underlying the New Deal. What is extraordinary is the way that thesis infiltrated and effected American constitutionalism over the next three-quarters of a century. Its effect was not simply to repudiate, both philosophically and in legal doctrine, the framers’ conception of humanity, but to cut away the very ground on which the Constitution rests... In the New Deal/Great Society era, a rule that was the polar opposite of the classical era of American law reigned [Federalist speech at 8, 10, 11, 12]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Rathergate anniversary - 59 days and counting - Belmont Club and IMAO

Click here to read my explanation of the Rathergate countdown and its significance:

Rathergate (and the long term significance of Rathergate) deserve numerous posts. Over the next three months I hope to focus on Rathergate and the new media in an effort to foster greater appreciation of how far we have come and where we are going next. I hope also to generate sufficient buzz to insure that this event will not be ignored or lost in a sea of the MSM/DNC's usual white noise.

A couple of blogosphere milestones occurred over the past weekend. IMAO reached its third anniversary and Belmont Club stopped being anonymous.

Both of these blogs predate Rathergate, but both enjoyed big jumps in viewership during September 2004 (check their "site meters"). The question remains, is the viewership rise attributable to the general explosion of blogging following Rathergate or due to general interest in the election? The answer is yes. In fact, both the election and Rathergate contributed to the blog explosion in the fall of 2004. The election heightened public awareness of political issues, while Rathergate focused that public awareness onto one scandal that bloggers were in a unique position to address. Only those two blogs can answer the question about their own traffic with greater certainty.

The left has the Supreme Court that it wants

Much of the talk regarding the Supreme Court now focuses on leftist attempts at compromise. Specter wants O'Connor to be the Chief for a year or two. Harry Reid wants the President to appoint another Earl Warren. Moveon.org claims to want a moderate.

The leftists have not openly advocated the appointment of a leftist. They advocate the appointment of a "moderate" - and for good reason (and no, it is not simply because they know they will never get an admitted leftist nominated during the Bush administration).

The left already has the Court that it wants and the laws that it wants. The Constitution has been so eroded by decades of New Deal nannyism that the remaining erosion will happen almost on its own. Runaway government has its own momentum - like a tractor trailer with no brakes. Special interest groups will continue to demand more government giveaways and more power - without the old constitutional restraints to limit that power. Government will continue to grow, spend, tax, regulate and oppress.

In order for the destruction of Western Civilization to be complete, the Court need only do nothing at this point. As long as the Court preserves the rulings of the past seventy years, the government's own momentum will lead us to socialism and tyranny. A moderate would preserve that journey toward socialist utopia on which we are embarked.

That is why it is important for us to point out that the government (protected by the Court) is on an extreme path right now. The extremist position is the protection of socialism and government power that has seen our government grow to levels unimagined by our founders. Kelo was one such exercise of those powers. The limitless expansion of the "commerce clause" so as to justify limitless Federal regulation is another. Our headlong rush to a secular society (except for a maniacal sensitivity toward and protection of all things Islamic) is a third example. The absence of any limits on abortion - even at the moment of birth, the expansion of Federal spending and regulation into areas nowhere enumerated, etc. etc. etc.

For Bush to appoint a strong conservative that would curtail some of the government's power would not be extreme. The appointment of a strong conservative would be the only moderate course. We have to redefine the issue. The government has been extreme for far too long. The leftists, despite losing so many elections, want to keep it that way.

The status quo will continue to produce more Kelo type decisions. And that is just the way the left likes it.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

My grandparents’ generation thought being on the government dole was disgraceful, a blight on the family’s honor. Today’s senior citizens blithely cannibalize their grandchildren because they have a right to get as much “free” stuff as the political system will permit them to extract... [IFJ speech at 2,3]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

MSM lie # 32 of 2005 - AP's fabricates Tony Blair comments

AP has contributed lie 32 [really # 33(see correction below)] to the list of lies of 2005. Charles Johnson writes the following:

I was preparing a post saying how disappointed I was in Tony Blair, for implying that the London terror attacks were an outgrowth of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Turns out Tony Blair never said this. The Associated Press fabricated it.

AP did post a correction a day later (today), but as with all MSM/DNC corrections, the damage has already been done. I am not inclined to give AP the benefit of the doubt, as they play such a major role on the list. See ## 13, 20, 21 and 31.

And those items do not include AP's false claims of booing at a George Bush rally in 2004 or the AP's role in the Pulitzer Prize being awarded to terrorists.
------------------
Update - July 17, 2005 - it would seem that I have lost track of the MSM lies. This one is LIE # 33. sorry.

But in my own defense, if the media would just stop lying so much, I could keep up with them. Maybe they could limit themselves to one lie per month?

Candice Jackson - Their Lives

Check out University Blog for details on Candice Jackson's television appearance this weekend.

Check out University Blog's comment here for details on how to obtain a chapter of Their Lives free via e-mail.



Previous post on Their Lives.

Rathergate anniversary - 60 days and counting - a Hugh Hewitt reader

Click here for previous posts on the pending anniversary of Rathergate.

A reader sent the following e-mail to Hugh Hewitt:

1. Because of blogs I know that I am not the only person who has a problem with the bias in the MSM.
2. Because of blogs I am not as frustrated with the bias I see in the MSM. I know that several someones with a better command of the language and better typing skills will nail them.

The preceding quote was reprinted on pp. 207-208 of Hewitt's definitive book, "Blog."



Point one is especially important. The MSM/DNC never wanted the prisoners (us) to discover that we could talk to each other. We were kept in isolation like the POWs in North Vietnam. Once we started talking via blogs (and before that via talk radio), the jail break known as Rathergate became inevitable.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

In the last 100 years – and particularly the last 30 – the Constitution, once the fixed chart of our aspirations, has been demoted to the status of a bad chain novel.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Rathergate Anniversary - 61 days and counting - a new front on the Supreme Court war

Click here for previous posts on the significance of the Rathergate anniversary countdown.

The blog explosion that followed Rathergate makes it possible to achieve even greater things in the blogosphere. The Supreme Court nomination battle offers tremendous opportunity to learn and thoroughly dissect the process so that we will not be surprised by leftist judges masquerading as Republicans. We can also more easily discredit lies directed against conservative nominees:

What is coming soon - perhaps even in the summer of 2005 - are clashes between competing blog camps. The perfect interblog storm is brewing and will break when the next Supreme Court nominee is sent from the White House to the presidency (sic??).
In fact, all future Supreme Court nominations are going to ignite blog wars as poliblogs of the left and right scramble to analyze, categorize, canonize, or demonize at least the next few nominees.

p. 103

Anita Hill would not have lasted a weekend with the new media on her case. But a flawed nominee will melt more quickly than a Popsicle in Vegas in July.

p. 148

Hugh Hewitt, "Blog."


The battle is beginning even before the nomination is announced, as George Bush has endured numerous warnings against nominating a moderate and squandering his mandate and legacy.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

I would deny [the senior citizen] plaintiff relief because she has failed to establish the public policy against age discrimination “inures to the benefit of the public” or is “fundamental and substantial”...Discrimination based on age...does not mark its victim with a “stigma of inferiority and second class citizenship”....; it is the unavoidable consequence of that universal leveler: time

Dissenting opinion of Janice Rogers Brown in Stevenson v. Superior Court, 941 P.2d 1157,1177, 1187 (Cal. 1997)

update ---------------

Lifelike Pundits post their views on Janice Rogers Brown

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Government acts as a giant siphon, extracting wealth, creating privilege and power, and redistributing it. [Speech at McGeorge School of Law (Nov. 21, 1997) at 18][See also Landgate, Inc. v. California Coastal Commission, 953 P.2d 1188, 1212 (Cal. 1998)(Brown, J., dissenting)(referring to government as “relentless siphon.”)]


Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Why diligence on our borders is important

The attacks in England today should be remembered everytime the immigration issue arises. Everytime we hear of the Minutemen or any other current scapegoat, we should remember how important we must view the job of protecting our borders. The terrorists in Europe (and in the U.S.) have a large Islamic population in which to hide and recruit. It is much harder to ferret out the active terrorists among such a large Islamic community. Those who committed the London bombings have already disappeared into London's Islamic neighborhoods and mosques.

Glimpses of our own future can be gleaned from previous items that are now forgotten. Michelle Malkin pieces together some of these items, including a 1997 NYC subway plot, a May 5th Manhattan bombing, the Chechen connection and some incidents in 2004.

Debbie Schlussel writes about additional lapses in our Homeland Security/Immigration policy/personnel.

Jerome Corsi lays out the scenario for a nuclear attack in New York.

Immigration/culture issues have consequences.

Let's stay focused

We should remain confident that the authorities are handling the terrorist attacks in London and doing all that they can to prevent more attacks (with the major exception of reducing immigration and preserving the culture of the host countries). We are in our own crisis here with the upcoming Supreme Court nomination. I suggest that we, as bloggers, remain focused on that battle. A bad decision now by President Bush may kill any hope to rein in the runaway federal government for another generation. We have only a few days left to influence the nomination.

Remember:

1) Reagan's decision to appoint Kennedy in 1987 resulted in the Kelo decision this year.

2) Ann Coulter reviews the consequences of Reagan's "biggest mistake":

Every human being on the globe has heard the lachrymose tale of O'Connor being offered the job of secretary after her graduation from Stanford Law School. Bushmen in Africa weep at the unfairness of it all — though not as bitterly as O'Connor does.

O'Connor spent the last quarter-century paying America back.

The MSM/DNC won't delay its own fight for a "moderate" court appointee - even in the wake of the London attacks. We should not delay either.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

[W]e no longer find slavery abhorrent. We embrace it. We demand more. Big government is not just the opiate of the masses. It is the opiate. The drug of choice for multinational corporations and single moms; for regulated industries and rugged Midwestern farmers and militant senior citizens. [IFJ speech at 3-4]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Supreme Court battle, Chuck Schumer, Ted Kennedy and a pop quiz

Pop quiz:

Which of these stories is real and which is a parody?

(1) "[New York Senator Charles] Schumer promised a fight over whoever the President’s nominee was: 'It's not about an individual judge… It's about how it affects the overall makeup of the court.'
. . . . . . . . .

Schumer proudly declared: 'We are contemplating how we are going to go to war over this.' "

or

(2):

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-MA, today criticized President George Bush's as-yet-unnamed replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as a "brutal, Bible-thumping, right-wing ideologue who hates minorities, women and cocker spaniels."

"He or she is clearly outside the mainstream of American values," said Sen. Kennedy. "President Bush has again ignored the Senate's 'advice and consent' role, forcing Democrats to filibuster this outrageous nominee."

The Massachusetts Senator said his aides have already discovered "reams of memos" showing that the man or woman Mr. Bush will appoint has "a history of abusing subordinates, dodging military service, hiring undocumented workers, spanking his or her children and rolling back the clock on human rights to the days when the Pharaohs ruled Egypt with an iron fist."

The Senator's office issued a news release to the media documenting the allegations against the potential high court judge, with a convenient blank line allowing reporters to fill in the nominee's name as soon as that information is leaked.

Bob Parks exposes the leftist point of view on Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Bob Parks wrote this piece in October 2003. I never heard of Parks or this publication before, but they both look worthy of further study.


Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

In the last 100 years – and particularly in the last 30 – ...[g]overnment has been transformed from a necessary evil to a nanny – benign, compassionate, and wise. Sometimes transformation is a good thing. Sometimes, though, it heralds not higher ground but rather, to put a different gloss on Pat Moynihan’s memorable phrase, defining democracy down.

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

[“Fifty Ways to Lose Your Freedom,” Speech to Institute of Justice (Aug. 12, 2000)(“IFJ speech”) at 2]

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Where government advances – and it advances relentlessly – freedom is imperiled; community impoverished; religion marginalized and civilization itself jeopardized....When did government cease to be a necessary evil and become a goody bag to solve our private problems?

Justice Janice Rogers Brown
[“Hyphenasia: the Mercy Killing of the American Dream,” Speech at Claremont-McKenna College (Sept. 16, 1999) at 3,4]

Rathergate Anniversary - 66 days and counting - Rush Limbaugh anniversary

Click here for previous editions of the Rathergate anniversary countdown.

Today is the 17th anniversary of the first national broadcast of the Rush Limbaugh program.

We recognize the Limbaugh anniversary as we celebrate Rathergate's upcoming anniversary. The blogosphere and Rathergate were made possible partially by the new media revolution of which Rush Limbaugh was the leading pioneer. Rush Limbaugh's program in the late 1980's and early 1990's made it possible for conservatives to communicate with each other. We realized, more strongly than ever before, that we were not alone. Hearing a national host (together with a horde of conservative callers) validate and expand on our own thoughts, gave power to conservatism that it did not previously possess.

As Hugh Hewitt observed recently:

Then Rush strode out and began to speak his mind, and tens of millions of Americans said, "Hey, that's what I think!" And his show exploded. And imitators, including me, followed. AM radio became the staging ground for an assault on MSM, a proof text for the business types who wanted models showing profitability.

"Blog", page 93.

The Rush Limbaugh program was a necessary weigh station on the road to the media revolution that turned hotter than ever on September 8, 2004.

Quote of the day - Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.
[“A Whiter Shade of Pale,” Speech to Federalist Society (April 20. 2000)(“Federalist speech” at 8]

Justice Janice Rogers Brown

Rathergate Anniversary - 67 days and counting - Hugh Hewitt, Newsweek, Dick Durbin

[Repost of a post destroyed yesterday by Blogger]

Click here for prior comments on Rathergate and the significance of the countdown.

"A senior journalist for the Los Angeles Times told me in the middle of 'Rathergate' that he writes with the fear that he will be 'blogged', meaning exposed as careless or agenda-driven, thus mocked and shamed and perhaps fired."

So wrote Hugh Hewitt in his book, "Blog." (page 6). On the surface, this quote appears to be good news. When major MSM/DNC journalists write in fear of being exposed, one would expect their news coverage to be less partisan. One would expect this fear to be a moderating influence on the MSM/DNC.

I still believe that ultimately we will see this result. But I think we will see it only after a long struggle. We will have to fight the MSM/DNC issue-by-issue, scandal-by-scandal, lie-by-lie.

But in the meantime, the MSM/DNC has become and will become more vicious and partisan than ever. Case in point - the Newsweek scandal. The blogosphere's ridicule and exposure of Newsweek's phony story of a Koran being flushed down the toilet at Guantanamo showed a new wrinkle in the MSM/DNC's strategy. Rather than accept defeat as it generally did in Rathergate and Easongate, MSM/DNC engaged in a protracted battle that continues even now. Shortly after Newsweek's humiliation, additional stories of Guantanamo abuse appeared in the MSM/DNC. MSM/DNC continued with these stories despite the lack of any evidence other than prisoner inspired rumors. MSM/DNC was determined to defend and justify Newsweek instead of allowing another MSM/DNC unit to be compromised and marginalized like CBS and CNN. Prisoner abuse/torture/gulag became the official MSM/DNC meme regarding Guantanamo, regardless of the consequences for national security or the war on terror. MSM/DNC had its power and reputation to defend - national security be damned.

The battle to defend the official MSM/DNC Guantanamo meme culminated in the words of Senator Durbin, who compared American soldiers to Nazis, etc.

From now on, we can expect that in the aftermath of every new scandal, the MSM/DNC will spare no effort to justify whatever blunder some MSM/DNC outlet has made. If the Washington Post says that the sky is purple and the blogosphere takes a different view, every Democratic politician will hire skywriters to spread purple smoke throughout the atmosphere. The consequences to the MSM/DNC of doing any less will be another huge loss like Rathergate. We should be prepared for Guantanamo type battles every time we point out another MSM/DNC blunder or lie.

(Hitler comparison alert!) The Normandy invasion did not soften the Germans' opposition to the Allies. The Germans fought with greater ferocity than ever before until they were finally defeated. We are now in that phase of the war that fell between Normandy and VE-Day. Rathergate was D-Day. Dick Durbin's speech was the equivalent of the Battle of the Bulge. There will be more such battles to come for us.

Quote of the day - Ann Coulter

"...(A)fter World War II, the Democratic Party suffered from the same sort of pusillanimous psychosis that seized all of France after World War I. The entire party began to lose its nerve for sacrifice, heroism, and bravery. Beginning in the fifties, there was a real fight for the soul of the Democratic Party. By the late sixties, the contest was over. The anti-Communist Democrats had lost.

-- Ann Coulter, P. 11

We have one week

The White House has stated that George Bush will not decide on the next Supreme Court nominee until he returns from Europe on July 8th. We have until then to make the case that we do not need another moderate.

-) Had Robert Bork been confirmed in 1987, the Kelo vote would have gone the other way.

-) The Kelo case must serve as our rallying cry. Conservatives are united against it and leftists won't touch it, relying instead on the MSM/DNC to (1) ignore the identity of the majority that made the decision, (2) insinuate that Kelo was somehow non-idealogical or (3) was the product of a "conservative court."

-) The Democrats will fight whoever Bush nominates, so he might as well retain his base. If he appoints a moderate, Bush' base will abandon him and his legacy will be little better than his father's. He is in for a fight, so he might as well keep his allies on his side.

-) Janice Rodgers Brown was recently confirmed by a large margin. If he appoints Brown to replace O'Connor, it will look a little funny, but the Democrats and "moderates" will be hard pressed to vote "no" after so recently voting "yes."

MSM Lie #32 of 2005

Check out Michelle Malkin for a discussion of Molly Ivins' statement that the United States has "killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein ever did." Michelle and the links cited therein run the numbers and show that the falsity of Ivins' slander is obvious. Hussein killed in excess of 1,000,000 - easily. But as far as Ivins is concerned, whatever inflames the enemy and undermines the war effort is ok to put in print.

This item will shortly be added to the list.

Quote of the day - Hugh Hewitt

"More big waves of blogging expansion are coming with a certain explosion around the time of the next nomination to the United States Supreme Court or the next terrorist outrage that actually occurs within the United States."

Hugh Hewitt, "Blog" page xi (c) 2005.

Quote of the day - Dr. Ahmad Dwidar

". . . the White House will become into the Muslim house."

Dr. Ahmad Dwidar -
imam of the Islamic Center in New York and a lecturer at Manhattan University

H/T LGF